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Sunday, August 9, 2015

Using the American Express airline fee credit

My most recent
credit card approval was for the American Express Premier Rewards Gold
card.It offers a 50,000 Membership Rewards point sign up bonus after spending $1,000
within 3 months.This is such an easy
sign up bonus that I had my mom sign up (and get approved for) the same
card.An interesting benefit of the card
is that it offers a $100 airline fee
credit per calendar year.

American Express will give
you $100 in statement credits for airline fees charged by the airline you
select for your card.You can choose
your airline here.According to AMEX, eligible incidental fees
include:

Many Flyertalk members report
success with getting the Premier Rewards Gold $100 airline fee statement credit
with purchasing airline gift cards.The American Express Platinum card offers a
$200 airline fee credit.The gift cards
most preferred appear to be the ones from American Airlines or Southwest
Airlines.

Since my wife needed a flight
from Portland (PDX) to Orange County (SNA), the timing worked out well for me
to try getting a statement credit for a Southwest Airlines gift card.

On Saturday 8.1, I selected
Southwest Airlines as my eligible airline fee credit on the American Express
website.I did this for my own Premier
Rewards Gold card as well as my mom’s Premier Rewards Gold card (she was nice
to let us use her $100 airline fee credit).

On 8.3, I went to the Southwest Airlines gift card page
and purchased a $100 Southwest Airlines gift card with both charge cards.

I then found the flight that
my wife wanted to take, which cost $221.01.

Before purchasing the ticket,
I applied both $100 Southwest gift cards to my account to get $200 off the
price of the flight!

You can apply up to
4 Southwest gift cards per flight booking.I only had to pay the difference of $21.01.Best of all, my wife earns more Southwest
Airlines Rapid Rewards points for this flight (since it was paid with cash)!

On 8.5, I was happy to find
that both of our AMEX accounts (me and mom) each received a $100 statement
credit from American Express.

AMEX wants
you to allow up to 2-4 weeks before the statement credits appear on your
account.Most flyertalk members reports
receiving their $100 airline credit only a few days after making an eligible
purchase.

The American Express Premier
Rewards Gold $100 airline fee credit is very easy to earn each calendar
year.For those that are not interested
in airline gift cards or fee credits, some reports say that you can go through
the United Airlines Mileage Plus X mobile app to purchase other gift cards
(such as Amazon gift cards).See this reddit
thread for more details.

When
January 2016 comes around, I can earn another $100 in airline fee credits!